


you're how i'm living

by flowermasters



Category: Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Dom/sub Undertones, Feelings, Friends With Benefits, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Prison Sex, Snapshots, all they do is flirt and have sex i hurt so bad, shadyche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 12:38:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15243558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowermasters/pseuds/flowermasters
Summary: They can have it all, inside or outside. Comanche's sure of it.





	you're how i'm living

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: sexual content, prison sex, internalized homophobia. The d/s undertones are so mild as to barely be worth tagging, though.
> 
> Title comes from "Religion" by Lana del Rey, which I like for them. Comments are much appreciated.

They’ve both done time before, although never together, and never with this long a stay ahead of either of them. They know how prison works, or at least they know how to adapt, which is half the work; more importantly, they know how to make prison work for them. But Comanche knows this time is going to be different, because they’re on track to have run of the joint three weeks in, and it’s because they’re together. Together, they’re unstoppable; this should be a piece of fucking cake.

But it is going to be different. Already is, three weeks in when they’re sitting in the yard, shooting the shit. A lull in the conversation means they’re both scanning the open area when Che sees it: two dudes across the yard, one giving the other’s ass a quick, possessive squeeze, letting go and walking away before a guard can catch sight. The looks on their faces are calm, as relaxed as anybody gets in the yard; the one left behind follows the other, no questions asked.

Che glances reflexively at Shades, wondering if he saw it, too. Of course he did, because Shades sees everything; his mouth twists slightly, one eyebrow twitching upwards. Che tenses instinctively, bracing himself for Shades’s usual brand of sly mockery, but it doesn’t come. Instead Shades turns his gaze to Che. Their eyes meet, and Comanche opens his mouth, sort of stupidly, as he’s unable to come up with any remark of his own.

“So,” Shades says, after a beat. “Been thinking about our strategy with Rackham.”   

The conversation moves on, simple as that, which makes sense. This is a part of hard time, and they’ve both seen it before. Just something you have to get used to, simple as that.

Comanche tries not to dwell on that moment in the yard, but he thinks of it at random times the following week—walking into the showers every day with Shades just a few steps behind, listening to Shades sigh in his sleep, or at dinner one night when Shades pushes his uneaten serving of canned peaches toward Che without being asked. Shades hates slimy foods, won’t eat anything slick unless it’s the only thing available to him, which means Comanche has been pilfering extra servings of canned strawberries and peaches since elementary school. This time, Shades slides his tray over as soon as he’s done, then rolls his eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching, as Che slurps a peach slice from his fork.

* * *

That night, neither of them are really tired; it’s been a long, slow day, with nobody brave enough to fuck with them and no fights, nothing from Rackham. Comanche does push-ups in the cell before lights out, mostly to tire himself out. Shades sits on Che’s bunk, his feet solidly on the floor, hands clasped loosely in front of him, eyes forward. Che never quite manages to catch Shades looking, but he can feel eyes on him. Anyone else would say he looks bored; Che knows better.

“Now you’re just showing off,” Shades says abruptly.

“You goddamn right,” Comanche says, grinning from where he’s doing one-arm pushups. Two more pushups, and then he asks, “So what’s the matter?”

“What do you mean?”

Che switches arms. “You got your thinking face on.”   

Now Shades raises his eyebrows. “My thinking face?”

“Yeah,” Che says, “where you frown all hard. Like, ninth grade algebra hard.”

Shades laughs. “Like we both didn’t have to repeat that shit, fucking around the way we were.”

Che laughs, too, and switches to crunches. The guards have just warned that it’s lights out when Shades says, “Che, come here.”

“Man, how are you gonna tell me to come to my own bed?” Comanche says, but there’s no hesitation when he stands and moves to the bunk.

He sits down next to Shades, expecting him to—pull something out, contraband, anything. Instead Shades just looks at him, still wearing his thinking face. Brow furrowed, lips thin.

“What?” Comanche says after a little pause.

“Nothing,” Shades says. His gaze flicks downward briefly, to somewhere around Che’s midriff, then back up again. His expression betrays nothing, but the eyes say it all. Narrow, too sharp; nervous as he ever gets. “I just thought—”

He stops, then, and before Comanche has time to process what’s happening, Shades moves, placing his hand on Che’s thigh. It’s a firm, deliberate movement; he’s goddamn near gripping the flesh there, stomach-joltingly close to Che’s dick. Comanche glances down, then up, blinking rapidly, probably looking dumb as hell himself. Then, he inhales, and meets Shades’s eyes. “Yeah,” he says, his voice unexpectedly rough. “Alright.”

Shades doesn’t say anything, just nods once and moves his hand again, this time to rub over Che’s dick. It feels like someone has punched all the air out of his lungs; he swallows with a dry mouth. Shades’s eyes are on his hand, his expression thoughtful, curious, but Comanche can’t look away from his face, even after the lights go out and they’re plunged into darkness.

It takes a moment of Shades fumbling with the fabric of his uniform for Che to remember how to move enough to get his clothes out of the way. Then, half-blind and trying not to moan out loud when he hears Shades spit in his hand, he shoves his own hand into Shades’s pants. It’s not very comfortable, and Shades’s elbow keeps knocking against his forearm, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from making any noise, but it is also so good he thinks he might make a fool of himself or die or both.

He tries to hold on for as long as possible, to savor this delirium while he can, but then he flicks his thumb a certain way and hears Shades’s breath hitch and it’s game over. Only after he’s come does Comanche realize how their bodies have turned in towards each other, their faces much closer than before, close enough that he can feel Shades’s hot, quick breath. Shades lets his sticky hand rest on Che’s thigh, head tipping forward, and Che almost kisses him when he comes. Almost.

His eyes have adjusted somewhat to the darkness, and for a long moment he just stares at Shades, who seems to be collecting himself, his eyes closed and his breathing steady. Then, just like that, he wipes his hand on the scratchy blanket—Comanche doesn’t have a chance to protest—and puts himself away, stands, and says, “Shit.”

It’s not a _what have we done_ “shit” but a _well, that was something_ “shit.” Comanche swallows around something useless as he watches Shades deftly lift himself up into the top bunk, then listens as he rustles with the covers before going still. There’s nothing Che can say, no going back now, even if he’d wanted to; he’s not sure what to want. His mouth tastes a little coppery now, the inside of his cheek bitten raw with the effort of holding it all in.

* * *

It takes two weeks, but it happens again.

Somehow, he never really doubted it would happen again, but not knowing when had been driving him fucking crazy; maybe that’s why, when they’re fucking around in the basement one day and Shades steps into his space, way too close, Che drops to his knees without prompting, without hesitation. With relish.

Shades keeps moving his hand to the back of Comanche’s head, the motion probably unconscious. He’s gotta be close—he’s looking at something far away, expression as dazed as it ever gets. Che has rapidly made a certain kind of peace with sucking dick, but he keeps gagging, and it’s fucking embarrassing. He swats Shades’s hand away and pulls back. “Knock that shit off,” he says. He sounds like he’s been swallowing rocks. “I ain’t got long hair to pull.”

He expects a comeback, _no bitches here so I guess you’ll do_ , but Shades doesn’t say anything. He looks down, startled, then blinks. Then he moves both of his hands and presses them back, palms flat, to the cinderblock wall behind him. There’s a weird look in his eyes, almost—sleepy. He looks down at Che like he’s waiting for some kind of approval.

Comanche doesn’t say anything, just gets back to work. Shades is watching him now, eyelids heavy but gaze focused. They make eye contact and Comanche acts without thinking, using the hand that isn’t wrapped around the base to grab Shades by the hip and press him harder against the wall, fingers gripping the jutting bone painfully tight through the fabric of a half-open jumpsuit. Shades hisses—pain or pleasure, it’s not clear.

“Che,” he warns. His voice is hoarse. Comanche doesn’t stop. Shades’s hands spasm against the wall when he comes, but they don’t budge out of place.

His throat feels raw, jaw sore, but he’s damn near giddy when Shades goes to return the favor. Shades is even sloppier about it than Comanche was, spit-slick and snuffling through his nose, which is sort of surprising but also sort of not; Shades does everything with finesse, a careful hand, but this _is_ the first dick he’s ever sucked. It’s that thought that has Che spiraling, cursing, groaning. The idea that they’re each other’s first anything somehow makes a lot of sense, as many firsts as they’ve been through together—first big scores, first kills, and now this, the one thing Che would’ve given anything for. 

“Would you let me fuck you,” he says, and Shades pulls off with a slick noise, brow furrowing.

“What? I’m not—” Shades says. “Would _you_ let me fuck you?”      

Che’s getting ahead of himself, it’s true, and he should tread carefully now; just because they’ve done this twice doesn’t mean it has to continue. Anything could push Shades away, end this before it even really begins, whatever this is. Still, there is something so patently ridiculous about Shades looking indignant with a dick in his hand that Comanche can’t hide his amusement. “Yeah,” he says, taking the gamble. “But why don’t you finish up here, first?”

Shades just stares up at him for a moment, that look that says _cower_ , and when Che doesn’t, he snorts. Comanche laughs now, too, giddy as he’s ever been.

* * *

So he lets Shades fuck him.

Really, it’s not a matter of letting, it’s a matter of wanting; this is everything Che has wanted for decades, the culmination of most of the dirty dreams he’s ever had, something he thinks—very privately—he may have been destined to want. He’s wanted Shades in some capacity, every capacity, for as long as they’ve known each other, certainly longer than he’s known all the things wanting could really mean.

The earliest of those dreams he’d ever had about Shades was sometime in junior high, and it wasn’t that dirty at all, just the idea of Shades before he was Shades—Hernan—eating a vanilla cone from Coney Island, licking ice cream from his fingers, licking it from Darius’s fingers. Che remembers waking up too hot under his covers and itchy all over, like he really had let ice cream melt. It feels a bit like that now, skin itching where it touches the coarse sheets, soothed where Shades touches him.

He thought he’d be nervous about this, wary of pain or of not being to Shades’s taste, but instead Shades is nervous enough for the both of them, coltish and jumpy even though Comanche _knows_ he’s fucked a girl like this before, maybe more than one. He tries not to think about any of Shades’s little girlfriends as a rule of thumb. Che can’t bother too much with being worried about him, anyway, not when Shades’s Vaseline-slick fingers are inside him.

It hurts at first, but the hurt is deeper than he expects, and the deeper he goes down into that pool of feeling the better it feels. The strangest, most surreal thing about it is the way he can feel the muscles of Shades’s abdomen trembling where his stomach is pressed against the small of Che’s back. “You good?” Shades says hoarsely, a little too loud for the quiet, pitch-dark space of Che’s bunk.

Che doesn’t answer and maybe can’t; instead he reaches back, finds Shades’s hand where it’s gripping his outer thigh, and squeezes it, pushes back when Shades pushes forward, urges him on.

* * *

It’s good to be the kings.

There’s something endlessly satisfying about watching Shades, with that slow, purposeful walk of his, stroll into the library and tell the two guys sitting at a table, “Get out.” They both look up, startled, and then their eyes drift, simultaneously, to take in Comanche lingering in the doorway. Che raises his eyebrows, then a few seconds later, steps aside to let them pass. Piece of cake.

Che heads to the far row of the smallish room, straight to his favorite sections, the 320s and 330s, politics and economics. He replaces the library’s battered copy of _The Prince_ , which he’s had in the cell against regulations for weeks, then skims, fingers brushing the spines. Then Shades’s breath is warm against the back of his neck.

Che glances over his shoulder. “Some folks come in here to read,” he says. “You should try it sometime, if you still can.”

Shades raises his eyebrows. “I can read,” he says, head tilting. He looks like an animal sizing up prey when he does that, something out of a National Geographic documentary. “ _En dos lenguas_ , motherfucker.”

“Yeah, well,” Comanche says, rolling his eyes. “I can read _you_. Like a book.”

They’re bolder now, bold enough to take this outside of the bunk, out from under cover of darkness, and still nobody knows. Che knows what the other guys think, what they’ve thought his whole life—Shades is the brains, Comanche is the brawn. They don’t know just how dirty Shades’s hands can get, or how he listens to everything Comanche says, his heart and his gaze steady, trusting. Nobody would ever guess how Shades clutches at him in the moment, how he leans in so close every time, how he needs this every bit as much as Che does.

He kisses Shades for the first time there, sitting on the library floor with their backs against the stacks; he’s kind of amazed that he lasted this long, after months of fooling around and fucking with the lights off, but it feels inevitable, maybe _because_ he’s been waiting so long. That doesn’t mean it’s not a little scary for a moment, kissing Shades and feeling him tense up, but it’s only because he’s coming in Che’s hand, gasping “ _ah_ ” against his mouth.

* * *

Shades never asks for it, never volunteers like Comanche had and has eagerly continued to do; he just presses the little tub of Vaseline into Che’s hand one night, wordless, and turns over in the bunk.

Comanche’s not about to argue with him, although some instinct kicks in, makes him want to say _you don’t have to_ or maybe _you want it?_ Instead he just slicks up his fingers, using his free hand to stroke idly at Shades’s dick so that when he slips his fingers in Shades is nice and relaxed. He knows Shades well enough to know that if something hadn’t been eating at him, curiosity or desire or whatever, he wouldn’t have brought this up in the first place.

Che eases in, holds still until he can feel Shades relaxing in slow increments. He’s not small by any means, so he’s careful to rock in slow and steady, letting his head tip forward to brush against Shades’s shoulder. Shades is on his hands and knees, head bowed almost piously.

“Don’t,” he whispers.

“Don’t what?” Both of their voices are raspy, so quiet, like the scratch of sheets or pages of a book.

“Be so fuckin’—gentle with me,” Shades says. “I don’t need it.”

Che sighs, warm and gusting over Shades’s shoulder blades. “Yeah, you do,” he says. “You do.”

One day they’ll get there, he _knows_ it, believes it with every fiber of his being. One day Shades won’t feel like he has to curl up and be owned, controlled, to let himself have this. Or maybe a part of Shades likes that, and that’s okay, too. It’s a conversation they don’t have time for, not with the threat of discovery lurking just beyond the bars. But for now Che sucks a kiss into the side of Shades’s neck, listens to his ragged breaths against the pillow, and knows that they will have everything, someday.

Shades seems a little dazed after he comes; Che asks if he should pull out and Shades just makes an incoherent little sound, so he does. Shades doesn’t say a word till he leaves the bottom bunk a minute later, and then it’s only a mumbled “night” as he gets into the top bunk. Che smiles, withholds a comment about how dreamily well-fucked he is—another time; everything, someday—and echoes him.

* * *

Coldest night of the year and the wait for lights out is sort of excruciating, although his bed feels only slightly warmer than the air in the block, even bundled up as he is in his sweats. A couple minutes pass, and then Comanche hears Shades rustling with something above.

“Shades,” Che says. “Get down here, man.”

A few seconds later Shades’s socked feet hit the floor with a soft thud, and he clambers over Che to get into the inside of the bottom bunk, closest to the wall—probably so he can burrow into the trapped warmth created by Comanche’s body, and also because he’s thus effectively hidden from view from the corridor. It is much too tight a fit for two grown men, but this is survival.

Once Shades yanks as much of the sheets and blankets onto himself as he can, he taps something against Comanche’s chest. Che can’t make out what it is by sight, but the feel of it in his hand when he reaches up to touch it—rectangular, covered by foil—is immediately familiar. “Candy?” he whispers.

“Milky Way,” Shades says, Cheshire Cat grin visible even in the darkness.

They share it, of course, trading bites back and forth. The chocolate is warm from Shades’s hands. “We used to do this shit as kids,” Che murmurs. “Remember?”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t stealing king-sized then.”

“ _We_ weren’t king-sized,” Che says, nudging one of Shades’s knees with his own. “God, move your narrow behind.”

Shades huffs a laugh, and they stay like that until they finish the candy bar, then even after, maybe too tired and warm and comfortable for anything else. Che isn’t aware of falling asleep, only that their whispers trail off after a while, and that his mouth and Shades’s breath both taste like candy.

He wakes up early as hell, probably because the bunk has now grown uncomfortably warm, body heat trapped by layers of fabric. It’s also very cramped, though it’s not until Che wriggles one leg out from under the blankets that he realizes Shades is still there. Crammed up against the wall, chin tucked down towards his chest to make himself smaller, but there, dead asleep. He is so limp and warm that Che lets himself wake fully, sacrifices an hour or two more of sleep if it means keeping Shades safe. From what, he doesn’t know, but it feels important.

They haven’t shared a bed since they were kids, but the last time they ended up in the same one they were—nineteen, maybe, off their asses on brown liquor. They’d been sharing a room in a cramped apartment at the time, and somehow they both ended up crashing in Shades’s bed. Comanche remembers rolling over, sick as a dog, awakened by the smell of cigarette smoke as Shades blew it out the window next to the bed. Shades looks softer now than he ever had then, maybe softer than he was when they were kids, or maybe it’s Che that’s gone soft. Eye of the beholder and all that.

“Hernan,” he says hoarsely, after a while. “’Nan. Wake up.”

Shades cracks open his eyes, looks at Che through slits, catlike. He permits it when Che reaches up and brushes fingers against his jaw, the nape of his neck, the vulnerable shell of his ear, just for someplace else to touch.

* * *

“Good behavior.”

“Good behavior my _ass_ ,” Comanche says, jerking his head to look at Shades, sitting next to him on the bleachers. “I watched you shiv—”

“Keep your voice down,” Shades says, waving a hand vaguely at Che. Nobody’s close enough to hear them, not in the open space of the yard; even without Rackham around, they’re still the big dogs here. They’re adaptive like that.

The fact of the matter is that Che could be getting out early, too, but he’s never been as slick as Shades. He’s always been a fast runner, but Shades has a way of melting into the shadows that is goddamn uncanny. Hernan was always too skinny to catch, slipping just out of reach.

The closer it gets the more anxious Shades gets, the kind of anxiety that simmers way down under everything he does, too subtle for anyone but Che to notice. He wears his thinking face a lot, paces their cell, fucks Comanche like he means it. By the morning of, he’s as giddy as a schoolgirl, by Shades standards.

Che’s in the cell when Shades comes in, escorted by two guards; they give his bunk and cabinet a perfunctory look-over, searching for contraband that now all belongs to Che. Then Shades says, “Give us a minute, would you.”

Both guards raise their eyebrows at Shades; he’s leaving, and therefore can’t hold the kind of sway he did yesterday. But then, like always, their eyes drift past Shades to take in Che, the one left behind.

When the guards step out into the hallway and turn their backs, Shades moves in close, a little too close even now. He looks up at Comanche with his lips pressed together slightly, expression—wary. “What,” he says, after several long seconds.

When Che doesn’t answer immediately, preferring to let Shades get this shit out, Shades says, “You want me to do some dumb shit, stay locked up?” He looks a little fervent all of a sudden, brown eyes wide. “When I could be out, making moves, money? For us?”

“No,” Comanche says. “I’m happy for you.”

This is a flat-out, bald-faced lie; there is nothing happy about him. But there is something sweet about the idea of Shades on the bus trip back to New York, waiting out the long, hot ride until his feet hit the streets again. Making moves. The only thing sweeter would be going with him.

Shades takes what he can get. “Rivals?” he says, testing the waters.  

Comanche’s lips move on muscle memory. “We ain’t got none.”

Shades pulls him in by his shoulders and hugs him, tight; Che turns his face into Shades’s neck for the last time for a long time. When Shades pulls back, he looks at Comanche, then kisses him hard on both cheeks, on some gangster movie shit. Che smiles.

Then Shades turns and walks out of their cell, accepting the guards as his escort. If he hears the breath Comanche draws in as he leaves, wounded and too loud, he doesn’t let himself look back.           


End file.
